


Walk Into The Club Like "What Up I Wanna Go Back Home To My Cats"

by JuniperGentle



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - This World Inverted (Shadowhunters TV), Cats, Chairman and Church are the Magnus Bane Protection Squad, Chairman is too cute and knows it, Fluff, Gen, M/M, well there's cats in it what did you expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:37:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7228486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuniperGentle/pseuds/JuniperGentle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magnus never asked for Clarissa Fray to come crashing into his apartment and mess up his otherwise mostly ordinary life.<br/>His two cats didn't ask for it either.<br/>So now Chairman Meow and Church (okay, mostly Chairman Meow) are on a mission to stop their Magnus' life from being turned completely upside down - and maybe get him a date in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walk Into The Club Like "What Up I Wanna Go Back Home To My Cats"

**Author's Note:**

> A present for [warlock-magnus](http://warlock-magnus.tumblr.com), who welcomed me into the fandom by 'proposing' to me, and inadvertently giving me plot bunnies in the process.
> 
> By a truly bizarre set of circumstances, I get to say that this is set in "show canon AU AU". Which is quite something for my first fic in this fandom. Basically, the alternate universe from 1x10 _This World Inverted_ but the cats come out to play.

It had, by all accounts, been a very boring afternoon so far. It was far too warm to do anything except curl up and sleep in the sunny spot on the comfy chair next to the table.

Chairman Meow, the youngest (but cutest) occupant of the apartment, stretched out across the cushion, eyes open just enough to see the other two occupants. On the other side of the room, his Magnus was curled up on the sofa, reading a book. Or, at least, he _looked_ like he was reading a book. He hadn't turned the page in several minutes which meant he'd either done the sensible thing and gone to sleep, or he was thinking about things a long way away. Church, big, dark grey and perpetually grumpy, was lurking on the cat perch near the bookcase. All in all, it was very peaceful.

And then the doorbell rang.

The doorbell was not supposed to ring after four pm. Especially on a Friday. This meant _trouble._

The Chairman was rather fond of trouble.

Magnus jumped and dropped the book with a bang that spooked Church into leaping for the sofa, landing firmly on Magnus' legs. “One second!” Magnus called, wrestling with the sudden onslaught of cat that had pinned him to the sofa. Chairman Meow rolled over and sat up, fixing his eyes on the door as Magnus finally managed to pull Church off of him and stand up. “Off the chair, little one,” he said as he passed by on the way to the door, grabbing the Chairman around the middle and plonking him somewhat unceremoniously on the floor. “It seems we have a visitor.”

The visitor, apparently, was called Clary. Which meant that the visitor was not called “Chairman” and therefore had no right to sit on the _chair._ Magnus had never fully understood this, even after several months of the Chairman attempting to communicate _Church=perch, Chairman=chair, Magnus=anywhere else._ Which was really very generous of him, because the sofa was the comfiest of all places in the flat, except for Magnus' lap, but the Chairman was still allowing Magnus first choice.

And the visitor was _weird._ She didn't act like any of the other people who normally came to watch Magnus turn cards over. Those sort of people usually started off being either defensive and gradually became more and more involved as Magnus told them the secrets they liked hearing, or were seriously invested in the pretty pictures from the beginning and normally went away smiling. But this girl sat there like _she_ was the one who knew secrets Magnus didn't.

The Chairman really didn't like that. Especially when he tried investigating her by jumping back onto the table (it was a really long way without the chair as an in-between stage, but he was naturally awesome and so of course he made it), and her response was to jump back and say, somewhat alarmed, “You don't have a cat...”

Chairman Meow had it on _very_ good authority (his) that Magnus did indeed have cats.

“I have two,” Magnus said after a pause, picking the Chairman up and putting him back on the floor again despite the Chairman's protests (though he did get a quick head-scratch). “Chairman Meow, and Church.”

This didn't seem to placate the Clary girl at all, and she leant forwards. “I'm not actually here for a reading,” she said. “I know you're a warlock, Magnus.”

That was more than _trouble_ . This was _dangerous_. Chairman Meow knew perfectly well that his Magnus was more than an ordinary human, even if the bit that made him different was very quiet and still most of the time, but if other people had found out? That wasn't good at all.

Magnus seemed to agree with him, challenging the Clary girl on her story, and the Chairman was just about to settle down on the footstool for a nap because the danger was over when Clary handed Magnus a piece of paper with black marks on it, and Magnus went very pale. Then he stood up and went over to the cupboard that was only there when it wanted to be (the Chairman hated that cupboard, because it was really difficult to sleep on), and started pulling out the things he didn't show to the usual customers.

Chairman Meow sat bolt upright, alarmed. Magnus was planning to wake up the bit of him that sparked and flashed when the Chairman looked at him sideways. And if Magnus was planning to wake up the sparks, it meant he was planning to do something with them. The Chairman hadn't been around the last time Magnus had done it, but sometimes the man would talk to him about times when he could summon food, drink, books, even furniture and people to him just by clicking his fingers. This was normally when it was raining and they needed more cat food and Magnus didn't want to leave the apartment, but the Chairman still listened.

But Magnus didn't seem to be wanting to use his sparks to get cat food. He seemed to want to use it to help the Clary girl.

Seeing that Magnus was busy making something, the Clary girl stood up and started wandering around the apartment. The Chairman wanted to hiss at her that Magnus' visitors only ever got to go as far as the table and _never_ got to touch the stuff on the bookshelves, but Magnus didn't seem too bothered by her explorations, even when she touched one of the beautiful books that crackled when the Chairman sniffed at it – though to be fair he was too busy pulling faces at the taste of whatever it was in the cup in his hands.

“That book is very precious,” he said after a second, glancing over. “Warlock spells preserved in all their grandeur.”

Oh, _that's_ why it crackled. It was a sparky book, like Magnus. Maybe it was the thing that was going to make Magnus more sparky? The Chairman decided to forgive the book for being crackly if that was the case.

But the sparks weren't there. Or they _were,_ but they weren't doing anything. Magnus looked very upset, and for a moment Chairman Meow just wanted to scamper over to him and tell him _“It's okay, I don't mind you getting rained on to get my food, it's fine,_ ” when the Clary girl pulled a shiny thing from around her neck and offered it to him.

The spark that flared up when Magnus touched the stone was enough to send both Chairman Meow and Church running, Chairman yowling unhappily at the brightness. He hid under the table, whilst Church scrambled into the cat-perch. Even if Magnus was suddenly smiling like he'd just discovered the secrets to the universe, there was a limit to what the Chairman would suffer.

Magnus' smile didn't last long, though, and even when the Clary girl had taken the shiny stone back and the sparks faded down to a flame rather than an inferno, he didn't look happy. The Chairman slid out from under the table and jumped up onto it to get a better look at his person.

“Meet me tonight at seven pm at the Institute,” the Clary girl ordered. “Dress to impress!”

And with that, she darted out of the room and down the stairs to the main exit.

“What did I just do?” Magnus asked the suddenly-quiet apartment, and the Chairman would have given him an answering meow, but he had just discovered a _very_ interesting-smelling teacup with some sort of liquid left at the bottom that he wanted to investigate. “Did I just agree to break into the Institute under the eyes of Valentine Morgenstern in order to find a portal to another dimension?”

“Meow?” the Chairman offered, poking his head into the cup in an attempt to lick whatever it was at the bottom.

“Ah-ah, Chairman,” Magnus scolded, finally noticing what he was up to and lifting him away from the interesting-smelling teacup. “I'm not sure what that would do to a cat, but I don't think I want to find out. Shoo! I need to find an outfit for tonight...”

The Chairman had been right. This was _trouble._

He needed a plan. Which, unfortunately, meant he also needed Church.

~

Church's plan, as it transpired, was pretty simple. They would follow Magnus when he left the apartment, which was easy as Magnus never remembered to lock the bathroom window. One of them would distract the humans, the other one would go and help Magnus so that he didn't use any of his sparks – or at least make sure no-one saw the sparks. Church had suggested that as the Chairman was the one who wanted the plan in the first place, he should be the one to go and help Magnus, but the Chairman knew he was the cute one and so it would have to be his job to distract the humans. Besides, Church was bigger, and bit with only minor provocation. Much more useful for Magnus protection.

They very nearly didn't need to go through with a plan at all, as Magnus spent almost half an hour pacing around the apartment, arguing with himself as to the wisdom of using his very rusty magic to help an inter-dimensional traveller claiming to be a Shadowhunter find a hidden portal under a high-security internet company building in the middle of a party completely filled with strangers whilst not actually being on the guest list.

“It's not that I don't want to help her,” he told them, as they sat on the sofa watching him, “but... it's so much, and so quickly. What if I can't find the portal? And even if I do, what if my magic isn't enough to open it?”

“Meow,” Chairman Meow agreed.

But Magnus ignored him. “No, I gave her my word. And the portal shard was real enough, _and_ she was the reason my magic's been kick-started.” As if to prove it, he snapped his fingers and a book appeared in it instantly. “It's more than I've had in decades. I can't let her down.”

“Mrrow,” Church grumbled, meaning approximately _“This is the worst of your many bad ideas, you dumb warlock._ ” The Chairman batted his ears, because that wasn't a nice thing to say about the person they had to look after.

Magnus snapped his fingers again, and a crinkly plastic packet appeared in his hand, replacing the book. “I don't know, kitties,” he sighed, opening the packet and offering the Chairman what quickly transpired to be a chicken-flavoured cat treat. The Chairman sat up, suddenly much more interested in the possibilities of the sparks. “It'll be the biggest risk I've taken this century. There's going to be so many people there I don't know. If something goes wrong, if they _find out..._ I could accidentally reveal all of Downworld.”

The Chairman leaned forward and butted his head against Magnus' hand. He wasn't sure how to get “ _don't go, then,_ ” across from this position. If Magnus just sat down for a second, the Chairman could plop himself down on Magnus' (very comfortable) lap and go to sleep, thus trapping his person for the foreseeable future. But instead Magnus just scratched the Chairman's head before traipsing into the bedroom to find something to wear. Curious as always, the Chairman followed him, and was treated to the unusual and yet unsurprising entertainment that was Magnus panicking about what to wear to a party he wasn't actually invited to.

“Define _dress to impress,_ ” he groaned, throwing a mustard-yellow monstrosity onto the bed – probably a gift from Ragnor, that man had always been strange - and only just missing the Chairman. “To impress whom? And don't sit on my jacket, Chairman, you're white and it's black and I guess I could use magic to get the hair off it but I'd rather not risk it just now.”

The Chairman dodged another flying shirt and tilted his head to one side. It wasn't like Magnus actually owned a huge number of shirts. Well, okay, he _did,_ but the Chairman had borrowed most of them to make a nest and Magnus hadn't actually noticed yet. But humans were weird about clothes, and even if Magnus' usual opinion was _if it fits and it's comfortable I'll wear it_ , if he was going to a party he was going to have to make a bit more of an effort.

(Whilst he took care to stay away from the jacket and the nice crinkly purple shirt with the white bits that he knew was Magnus' favourite, the Chairman _did_ sit on the mustard-yellow shirt because that thing was an abomination even by his standards.)

~

The second that the door closed behind Magnus, the Chairman bolted for the bathroom and the open window. Church, just behind him, was muttering things about _too old for this_ and _if this was for anyone but Magnus_ , but the Chairman ignored him. They couldn't risk losing sight of Magnus for too long.

Tailing him down the road proved to be surprisingly easy; Magnus was walking fast, but nowhere near as fast as a cat could – and besides, they knew short-cuts. It was only when they got to the park that things got a little sticky; cats didn't usually wander here, especially two together, and so they were starting to draw attention from the humans nearby. A couple of small girls and a young boy tried to entice the two cats towards them, holding out their hands and making soft kss-ing noises like the squeak of a mouse. The Chairman heroically ignored them – he had a mission, and he would not be distracted by cuddles!

Church just glowered, and trotted on, keeping Magnus in sight at all times.

They had been tailing their Magnus for about fifteen minutes when all of a sudden he stopped outside a very, very big building. “This is it,” the Chairman heard him mutter as he pulled out his phone and tapped something into it. “Let's see if she's held up her end of the bargain.”

And with that, he pushed open the massive double doors in front of him, and stepped inside.

Time to start the infiltration.

There were no open windows that either of the cats could reach, so after a rather disgruntled couple of circuits of the big building, they both settled down at the main entrance and waited for someone to come out. They only had to wait a few minutes, as it happened – a portly figure stepped out of the door, attention on the cigarette in his fingers rather than his surroundings. The cats were past him in an instant.

The inside of the building was as strange as the outside, and much, much noisier. There also weren't very many places to hide, and the Chairman nervously ducked behind Church as the two cats slipped down the long hallway.

Where had Magnus gone?

“Wh – was that a _cat?_ ”

Uh oh. Time for Step 3, Part D: Operation Cute But Deadly.

The Chairman dashed for the largest open space he could see, hoping to draw attention away from Church so that the older cat could go and find Magnus in peace, but the man who had spotted them was far too fast. He scooped Church up in one arm, so fast that even Church didn't have a chance to protest, and then swooped on the Chairman before he could get himself hidden in the thicket of legs around the room.

“What on earth are you doing here?” he asked, effortlessly holding Church and the Chairman at the same time. He was very tall, and it was a very long way to the floor, especially for a little cat like the Chairman. “You've got collars so you're not strays, but most cats wouldn't come anywhere near a party this loud. Maybe one of the guests brought you. Well, I'd better lock you upstairs until we can find out who you belong to.”

Oh no. This was definitely not in the plan. The Chairman flicked an ear towards Church, knowing that the other cat would understand _“help, what do we do now?”_

Church, being Church, _bit._ The tall man yelped and let go of the bigger, older cat, but somehow didn't lose his grip on the Chairman despite the smaller cat wriggling as much as he could. Church raced away into the forest of legs, vanishing almost immediately on the trail of Magnus and the Clary girl.

“Nope,” said the man as the Chairman tried another fruitless wiggle. “Your friend got away but I'm not letting you go until I work out how you got in here. And where you came from...”

Well, at least some part of the plan was working. As long as Church found Magnus, everything would be fine – after all, Chairman Meow's job was to be the cute distraction.

Tall Man looked around, apparently taking the fact that he had a cat in his arms somewhat in stride. The Chairman couldn't help but be somewhat impressed. Conventional cat wisdom declared that any person unexpectedly taking hold of a cat would be unsure of themselves and easy to escape from. Not Tall Man, though. He just readjusted his hold on the Chairman and started stroking him gently, hand warm against his fur.

Time for a risk. Clearly this man was the only real threat at the gathering, as he'd been the only one to notice their entrance, so he was the person who needed distracting the most. The Chairman yawned and nudged his head against Tall Man's hand, playing up his cuteness as much as he possibly could. It worked perfectly, in more ways than one, as Tall Man shifted his hand around and found the sweet spot between the Chairman's ears that was perfect for scratching. As he did so, though, the Chairman felt his collar being gently tugged around so that the name-plate was readable.

“Just a phone number,” Tall Man commented, fingers turning the brass plate over. “I guess I could just put you outside and you'll probably find your way home, but two cats coming into a noisy party together? That's not normal. Curiouser and curiouser, as they say.” He laughed, apparently to himself.

The Chairman had no idea what Tall Man was talking about, and was also beginning to get worried. Church had not come back, and Magnus was nowhere to be seen. Whilst Tall Man was clearly an excellent person to have been catnapped by, the purpose of this outing was not to get stellar-quality cuddles from a tall and very cute human, but to aid and assist their not so tall (but equally cute) Magnus.

Maybe he should go and find out what had happened to Church?

The Chairman was about to put his morals to the side and utilise Church's rather violent escape method, when someone cleared their throat from just behind Tall Man.

“Um, I'm sorry... but you have _my cat._ ”

Magnus! Chairman Meow perked up immediately and renewed his efforts to escape, this time finally succeeding and bouncing down to the floor and over to his Magnus' very sensible black shoes. Magnus promptly scooped him up, grip much more secure than Tall Man's had been.

“I'm so sorry,” he muttered, and yes, he should be very sorry, leaving Chairman and Church behind like that and going off somewhere without telling them, this was going to need chicken-flavoured bribery to be forgiven. “I have no idea how he got here, he's normally a stay-at-home cat.”

...what?

“I should have guessed he was yours,” Tall Man said, and the Chairman saw his smile lap up his face like waves on the shore and crash into his eyes at Magnus' obvious confusion. “Of course the second cutest thing here belongs to the cutest.”

Oh he _liked_ this one! Though maybe it was bad that he thought Magnus was only the second cutest, considering that the Chairman could hear how fast his favourite person's heart was beating just _looking._ That meant Magnus liked this one too. At least he showed good taste in _some_ things.

“You don't happen to own a big, grey, grumpy-looking Persian as well, do you?” Tall Man asked, and Magnus' eyes went very wide.

“Oh no, please don't tell me Church is here too...”

“Church?”

“My other cat. This one's the Chairman. Chairman Meow.”

“Meow!” said the Chairman, meaning, of course “ _hello, I'm the cute one.”_

Tall Man laughed. “Do you normally name your cats after despots?” he asked, and Chairman was not surprised to feel Magnus' arms tense around him involuntarily at the sound of the laugh, more a shiver than a flinch. “But yes, I saw another cat running around here earlier. If I wasn't the one who planned this whole thing, I'd have thought someone had brought along the Cheshire Cat just to fit the theme a bit more.”

Magnus' arms loosened enough that the Chairman could clamber out of his grip and up to his favourite perch on Magnus' shoulder. “I really am sorry, I've no idea how they got here... you said you planned this party?”

That earned him a half-raised eyebrow. “I _am_ the best party planner in New York,” Tall Man said, sounding a little bit affronted. “Yes, I planned it.”

“It's... um, a good party. Very interesting... er, theme.” Magnus was floundering, and the Chairman was pretty sure he was wishing he'd never opened his mouth. To diffuse the situation somewhat (there was more to protecting his Magnus than stopping humans from seeing his sparks), the Chairman launched himself from Magnus' shoulder into the chest of Tall Man, who let out a soft “oof!” and stepped back, somehow catching the Chairman before he could hit the floor. Discovering himself back in the arms of the second person who had ever found that perfect spot under his chin to scratch, the Chairman purred happily, and decided that Tall Man was going to be his favourite human now.

(Magnus wasn't completely human, he didn't count.)

“I think the Chairman likes you,” Magnus said, safe in a topic that he was familiar with. “Traitor.”

Tall Man shifted his hand to the Chairman's head, fingers running gently over the fine fur. “And your other cat? Is he as nice as this one is?”

“No, Church is nowhere near as friendly,” Magnus said, and he was finally smiling properly. “To be honest, I'm pretty sure he hates me too.”

“I don't see how anyone could hate you, Magnus.”

Magnus went scarlet and tried to say something, but it vanished into a stuttering mess of sound that might have been “You haven't met Church yet” - but might also have been “Zoo hadn't bet your jet” for all the sense it made. To the Chairman's surprise, this earned him a laugh from Tall Man (who knew Magnus' name already... had they already met?)

“Fine, then,” he said with a flourish of one hand. “I'll believe you. Take me to Church.”

Magnus blinked at him, scarlet now washing out of his face as the moment passed. “Did you just...?”

But Tall Man just waved him on ahead, the same smile fixed on his face, and his eyes never leaving Magnus'. The Chairman wanted to keep this one. Mostly for cuddles, of course, but Magnus clearly liked the attention Tall Man was lavishing on him. It was the Chairman' birthday soon, surely Magnus would let him keep _one_ human, especially if it was this one. He wound his claws into Tall Man's jacket and purred as loudly as he could as Tall Man followed Magnus down into the basement to look for the grumpy Persian.

~

“I'm so sorry about this,” Magnus said again, glaring at the Chairman and Church. They were sat in a large cardboard box that Tall Man – no, his name was _Alec,_ Magnus had used it at one point – had liberated from the basement of the Institute, waiting on the pavement for the taxi to come and pick them up (even Magnus wasn't optimistic enough to think that Church would stay in an open box for the whole walk home). “I didn't even have a proper invitation and then my cats come in and cause so much chaos...”  
Alec's smile was fierce and crinkled the edges of his eyes as he crouched down and reached into the box to smooth down the fur on the Chairman's head. “It wouldn't be a good party if there weren't any crashers. Lucky for me, all of them were very cute.”

Magnus went that strange colour again, and the Chairman purred. He was feeling rather proud of himself; when Alec and Magnus had both been preoccupied trying to catch Church after a pre-emptive escape, the Chairman had managed to find a long, white and grey scarf that smelled very much like Alec, and had dragged it into the box to make a comfy bed. In the low light, neither of the two men had noticed, and now the Chairman had something to remind him of his new favourite human.

“You can make it up to me,” Alec suggested. “I've got another party this weekend and I haven't found a plus-one yet. Come along to that one – _without_ your cats – and I won't even mention to Val that the “Cheshire Cat” he saw darting into the basement wasn't just a figment of his imagination.”

“Meow!” the Chairman chirruped, meaning, of course “ _yes of course he'll go with you!”_ which was just as well as Magnus seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Honestly. Did the Chairman have to do everything to make sure that his Magnus was safe and happy?

The taxi arrived at that moment, and the task of getting the box of cats into the back seat proved to be one that required two people (the Chairman blamed Church, who kept wriggling). Eventually, however, both Magnus and the box were safely strapped into the back of the taxi.

“Hey,” Alec said, leaning down slightly to look into the car through the window, “Call me and let me know when you get them home? Or if they get out and you need someone to come and catch them again.”

“S-Sure,” Magnus stammered, flustered, and then seemed to summon up courage from somewhere (to the Chairman's eye, it looked like the sparks, but a softer colour, tinged with Magnus' humanity) to say “Could I have your phone number, then?”

Alec threw back his head and laughed, before handing Magnus a small piece of card. “Here,” he said happily. “I think you'd be surprised how long it's been since someone asked me for my number like that.”

This called a small but delighted smile onto Magnus' face, and for a few seconds the two men just looked at each other, grinning. Then the taxi driver coughed and the moment was broken; the meter was already running, and there was a lot to do back at the flat.

“Party, this weekend,” Alec said as he stepped back. “It's a date, okay?”

Magnus didn't have a chance to do more than splutter as the taxi slid out into traffic.

The Chairman curled up on his purloined scarf and settled down for a long nap. He liked Alec at the moment. But if the tall man did anything to hurt his Magnus, there would be claws and teeth and blood, and nobody would get out of it unscratched (except Magnus of course.). That was a promise.

All in all, this had been his best plan in a very long time. Never mind that Church was the one who actually came up with it, the Chairman was clearly the only one who had put any work into the job (he'd been a very efficient cute distraction, Church had just bitten Alec, run around the basement and _might_ have killed a demon - if he was telling the truth). It had been a very good plan.

Maybe he should make another one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am inappropriately giggly over the fact that I got to make a “take me to Church” joke in this, because seriously this fandom does not use that often enough.


End file.
